Living Memory

Yesterday, I went and saw my cousin and his family in Murrietta, about an hour south of me. His parents where in from Texas, and I had not seen my aunt and uncle for over two years.

My aunt is a cut up and one of the nicest, caring people you can know. My uncle, who had a harsh upbringing, but never seems to let that stop him from telling a great, and often funny story about the time. He is, to me also, the museum of my father's life. I've mentioned before how he's told me stories of my late father, and he usually does it with so much love and respect.

Last night he told at story about how my mom and dad (not yet married) and them had traveled to Niagra Falls for the weekend on the train. And because sleeping cars cost extra, they sat across from each other -legs touching legs - on the overnight trip. They were, of course, exhausted by sitting up all night and by the time they actually got to the Falls, they were tired, but he said they still had a great time.

My aunt then told a story about how my dad gave their daugther Nancy a St. Christopher's medal. Auntie said that Nancy was maybe, at most nine months old. My dad loved kids - something I inherited from him - and seemed to adore Nancy. He asked Auntie -knowing that she was not Catholic - if he could pin that medal to her crib. Of course, my aunt said yes.

But these people -who are not biologically my realtives, but I've known them all my life - represent the living history of a my father I never knew. Mom has told stories, but it was never in such detail. Both seemed to love my father very deply, and I think they miss him as much as I do.

I aslo heard the tales of how my mother really has become the person she resented all her life: her father. When she was visting auntie back in September, she apparently did not want to do anything that came clsoe to dribing more than 10 miles.

Mom hates flying, so they travel by car. Everywhere. So when she got to Texas, and auntie suggested that they go here, and mom would ask how far away it was and auntie would say an hour, mom would say she didn't travel all this way in her car just to do more traveling in a car.

I'm unsure what she expected to happen.

My brother has become that way too, as he does not like to travel more than 10 miles from his home. It appears to be too much effort.

Reminds me of the line in A League of Thier Own. Jon Lovitz's character, the lovable, but sarcastic scout, is trying to lure a pitcher away from her small town life. They're at the train station and the poor girl is sad to leave and is hesitating. Lovitz's line, fustrated at the dwindling time, says: "See, the train moves, not the station."

I think my mom has become that. She rather have it come to her, than she go to. Which is why she'll never sell that house in Illinois and move some place where it's warmer, cheaper and be around people her age.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

Mark Twain once said. It seems this is the world my sister lives in.

Well, nephew is back at Little sisters house.

I'm so unsure about all of this. Whilel nephew created all of his financial issues, I don't know how he's going to pay off all of debt, plus pay for all the things that the house needs repaired so LS can sell it working part-time at $7.00 an hour. Plus, crazy girl has nephew sign an agreement that he cannot get help from any family member, or she'll kick him out. This also means, at this time, I cannot even call my nephew -or can he call me - without threat of being homeless.

It astounds me that LS thinks all of us are crazy, including non-family members who know the whole deal. It seems, she believes she is the only sane one in the entire universe. Well, at least the family anyways.

Big sister spent time with (along with LS) at the psychologist on Feb. 19. Apparently, LS said that the entire family has never been for her, while she always puts 100% into everything. Plus, we never call. Well, when we do, she never answers (because I'm guess she gets a lot creditors calling her, but that began ages ago), and if we do leave a message, she never responds back.

Too busy getting on with her life, I guess. Hello, irony is knocking on the door.

BS has said she no longer wants to talk to LS anymore, and since I have not spoken a word to her since early January, I'm assuming she does not want to talk to me. Which is fine, because there is nothing to talk to her about. She has chosen, like she did 20 plus years ago, to cut the family out of her life. She see's it differently, of course. She thinks we've abandoned her.

My LS lives in a tiny world, caught on a stage in which she is the only clear headed thinker. She has basically taken away her kids from the rest of the family, using them as weapons in the imagenary battle she has created in her mind.

Nephew is stuck at home until he pays off his debt, but I'm sure he does not want to leave his little sister there all by herself, with such an unstable person that is my sister. I fear for them both, I really do.

But I swear, if anything happens to either of them, my sister will pay. Even as I write this, save it and post it, I don't care what happens to me. I will hurt her so much, knock her into next week so hard that it will take a major operation just to get Wednesday out of her ass.

She is lost to me, and the only sadness I have left, is for niece and nephew. Stuck with this bitter women, this jealous husk of pig, I fear for their lives.

And, if they can survive, I also fear for their mental health. Living with LS is bound to damage them, bound to ruin what ever chance they have at success.

As much as I cannot forgive my uncle for his verbal abuse while growing up, I cannot forgive my LS for the shit she is currently pulling.

Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice -well, I won't let her. She is dead to me, as dead as my father is.

My only hope is that, by the gace of God, someone will rescue those two kids.

Viva Las Vegas and more family stuff

I remember, years ago, a commercial on TV where an actor is pushing some kind of medicine, and he says “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on television.” My guess is, that the image of a “trust-worthy TV actor doctor” was suppose to convince people to buy the product. I, of course, saw through that -as did many writers, as that ad became the joke of many comics.

On Sunday, I went to Las Vegas to see my Older Sister and her husband, who were taking a belated trip to Sin City after the last attempt in April 2006 was cancelled when my Younger Sister’s husband passed.

I went there knowing I would hear all the tales of what has been happening in YS life and her two kids, my niece and nephew. I had known that nephew had been thrown out of the house after flinging -in her direction - a steak knife near niece. Apparently, younger sister had finally decided that nephew -at age 19 - should learn what cause and effect is about (something I have been trying to tell and teach him for years).

Over the years, especially the last five, I was aware of things my sisters two kids were doing. But, this past weekend, when given the final puzzle pieces to certain things, I discovered I knew very little.

Granted, I did shy away from getting too involved with younger sisters kids, as she had made it clear on several occasions that they were her kids and she would dole out the punishment and what not. Fair, to me.

Case in point, my nieces losing here internet privileges. Now, what I thought I known about it turned even uglier this past weekend, when older sister told me the full truth about why niece had lost those privileges and why younger sister tried her hardest to keep dying husband’s family from being alone with him.

What I been told was the truth, but like Obi Wan in Return of the Jedi, it was from a certain point of view. I was told she had done and said some things on her myspace page that had caused her to be banned -nephew reconfigured the home computer with a log-on code that only he and his mother knew. It seems niece -who would’ve been late 13 or early 14 - had posted a nude picture of herself on the net. I tell you, this floored me on Sunday, standing in the middle of the Paris Casino in Las Vegas.

And, older sister informed me, this was why my late brother-in-laws sisters were not allowed to be alone with him during his final weeks on earth. They knew what niece had done, and they wanted to their brother what his daughter had done and what his wife NOT doing about it. Younger sister apparently felt this was info he did not need (and maybe so, but...) And older sister informed me that our brother-in-law died never knowing this. The truth was kept from him, by my younger sister, if only because brother-in-laws family already hated her and felt she was bad for him. And this was the proof they were right.

My little sister lives in a bizarre world where everyone is wrong and she is right. And even if she admits she’s wrong on that rare occasion, she doesn’t care. Since the passing of her husband last April, she has grown more and more odd in her parenting skills and her perspective on life itself.

So, I’m not a physiologist, but I am a Monday Morning Quarterback, so her goes. My younger sister is crazy. I don’t see how she manages to live inside the tiny stage she’s created in her mind. She see’s herself here as the victim. My mom, my brother, my sister, my stepdad, my step siblings, their spouses and me are all wrong about her.

It is we who refuse to move on with our lives, it is her children who are poising the well against her, it is my mothers and older sisters fault that she is in the position she is currently in -need we remind her again, that all of this started 20 plus years ago when she abandoned the family for the older man who said he loved her.

Now, nephew is living with my older brother. And on Sunday, niece was staying at her aunt and uncles house, close to where my brother and his wife live. Apparently, younger sister called my step-sister looking for her daughter (young sis had been out with her boy toy) to take her out to breakfast). Step-sis asked her if she was actually going to spend time with her daughter, or just have breakfast with her, then drop her off at home and head over to boy toy Mike’s house to get their freak on? Apparently, my little sister made some rude comment and told step-sis that K could stay with them, and hung up.

As of today, I think now that both my niece and nephew are at my brothers. The niece is still at home, but we’ll see how long that lasts.

This tale is far from over.

Family Poop

Lets start by saying while she is my little sister and I have to love her, she is so far in the dog house with the family, I'm unsure how to recover from this.

Since her husband passed last April, I assumed my siuster was trying to get her life back together, along with her two kids. But, I've learned, especially after four years that her husband was sick, that my little sister is a liar and not be trusted.

While it was obvious to all that she was stuck in a loveless marriage, for perhaps, the last decade she was married, after her husband was given the cancer notice, she tried her vainest to keep him alive. Now, maybe, I see why. He was her meal ticket (when he worked).

Don't get me wrong, she did work and go to school, but I'm unsure of her grades, as she claims they are good. Now, after the past 10 days, I begin to wonder if my little sister is just not to be trusted.

let me backtrack a bit. About a good 20 years.

Dawn was maybe 19 at the time. She was working for Giant Auto in Hoffman Estates -ironically, my brother had worked for them, and at the same store. There she meet a man about 18 years her senior, who (though I'm still not sure) was seperated from his wife. Kurt (or John as we would eventually know him as) has two kids, just a few years younger than Dawn.

Anyway, my sister began to have an affair with him, something she tried to hide. At this point, I guess, one could say that both my sisters were looking for "daddy" figures in their lives. Having lost our father at such a young age (Dawn was not yet 4), they both seemed to find comfort in men way older than them.

Once everyone found out about Dawn and John, well, all hell broke loose. My mom ruled her house with an iron fist, and she took no shit from no one. She tried her hardest to stop Dawn from seeing this guy, which would, in hindsight, push Dawn farther away.

One thing led to another and Dawn and John moved to New Mexico. During that time, Dawn kept in contact with big sister Donna, so we found out that Dawn had married John after his divorce and was now pregnant. During the months before Steven's birth, things between my Mom and Dawn eased. My mom still hated John, but she loved her daugther.

Steven arrived into the world on September 18, twenty-five years and one day after mine. Donna and mom went to New Mexico. Almost a year later, Dawn and John moved back to Chicago, and with the aide of the baby, things seemed to get better. I still don't think my mom ever trusted John, but she tolerated him, if only because Dawn was back with her grandchild.

They settled in (I moved to California), had another child in September of 1991, Kyra, and things went on, as they are bound to do. I moved back 18 months later.

But there was always tension, and me and my little sister tried to get along. It seems that Dawn and me were never destined to nothing more than brother and sister -the same thing I have with my older brother. Only Donna and I seemed to be more than just siblings. We were best buds also.

So, over the next decade, John and Dawn would give Steven an Kyra everything they wanted, as if John was making up for all the things he never gave his kids from his first marriage (and I often wonder if they ever became jealous of their half brother and sister). But somewhere along the line, both fell out of love with each other. And, I think Dawn realized she was stuck.

And then came the lies, the deception of not paying bills, of letting things slide to the point that I began to question things in my mind. But instead of asking, or some might say prying into her life, I ignorned some obvious things.

And then cancer struck, and the long slide into death for John began, and Dawn's family slowly began to unwind like a broken yoyo; no one was there to tug it back up.

To be continued...